Adopted Battery Hen Rehabilitation

Battery hens produce 80% of the eggs used in the world (that was a conservative estimate but I’m sure it’s actually even more), and this kind of factory farming is one of the most abominable things man has done to Nature. For about a year, or half it’s life basically, the hens are kept in small cages and not allowed to dust bathe, forage for insects and greens, and generally just be free and happy. They are kept in cages only because it makes their price cheaper because you don’t need to spend so much time or manpower collecting eggs.

Pictured here is an actual battery hen operation by a small scale farmer in South Africa. They are overcrowded and small. All they can do is eat and lay eggs, for a year, until they are roughly bundled into cages and sent off to the abattoir or sold live in informal settlements. In the latter case, the hens are often without shade for the whole day, and with the current heatwave in the highveld at the moment this really half kills the hens.

An animal lover by the name of Cindy (thanks Cindy!) has adopted 2 battery hens and I have adopted the other 2 so a total of 4 hens were rehabilitated this weekend. It was horrible for me to see these poor animals with red diseased looking wounds by their undersides, and their bodies felt fragile and brittle. It really broke my heart I actually wore sunglasses just to hide the tears. I put them in their own outside room so that they could feel safe and gave them food and water and left the door open. When I checked up on them, they were outside and on the earth for the first time in their lives. They were able to walk around and nibble on grass and insects and other things, which they had never done before – they were literally fed the same thing every day for their whole lives.

The picture of them looks much better than the reality. Their feathers look white, and the pink bald spot looks not too bad. But actually the skin on the whole underside of their bodies was red and inflamed looking, and the feathers were matted, broken off, and filthy.

I have taken a picture of one of my hens, see how fluffy and clean her feathers look. And no bald patches at all, just thick healthy fluffy feathers.

The males suffer an almost worse state. They are usually not kept in cages (but still not free to go outside) but with many of them towards the end of their lives they are so heavy that their legs can’t cope and they spend a lot of time lying around, not roosting on perches as they would normally, and as a result they get inflamed and infected skin as you can see in this picture.

These are extreme cases but they are VERY common and ALL the animals suffer a high level of physical discomfort and unhygienic, unnatural conditions.

KFC, McDonalds, all chicken in Pick n Pay, Checkers, Spar etc, they all use chicken from factory farms that keep chickens from living happy, healthy lives.

Here you can see one hen and one rooster. This rooster’s legs are so powerful, he has no problem running around and he is HUGE, about 3kg I estimate. If we switch to free range meat we can have the same thing under better circumstances we just need to use our massive buying power, which is the only power in this world of money worship, to improve the lives of animals.

Compare this picture of my chickens having an absolute ball, and tell me:

Lara Whybrow is the founder and website developer/content writer at Ethical Suppliers. She loves growing all manner of things, particularly rare plants or edibles and used to keep a small flock of free range chickens. She is passionate about getting more people to grow organic food for themselves and selling the excess or giving it to those less fortunate.